Nigeria, the self-acclaimed biggest economy in Africa, the most populous black nation on Earth, and one of the fastest growing economy in the world.
A country where there's no effective management of Economy, Corruption is Everywhere and Oil Spillage, Bunkering and theft is rampant. Since Nigeria's Independence, Nigeria lost Trillions in Dollars or in Nairas to oil problems, corruption and ineffective management of our nations' coffers. However, if all of the above has been curtailed from inception, what would we do with the money? Some would say Invest, invest where? SPACE.
As a nation where we have the fastest growing telecommunications network in the world, an effective space program can play a huge role in transforming the lives of ordinary Nigerians and Africans as a whole through contributions in areas such as adult literacy and distance learning programs, predictions of weather patterns and natural disasters and telemedicine and can also play an important role in Defence and military.
Nigeria is not new in the space arena. First in 1967 at a meeting of African Union, Nigeria showed it's interest into space technology. 20years later,the Ministry of Science and Technology set up a National Committee on space applications to give recommendations to government on modalities for the implementation of Science and Technology program which led to draft policy on space science and Technology and the establishment of a Space agency (NASRDA) in 1999. Fast Forward to today and Nigeria has an indigenous satellite operator, Five(5) satellites in orbit and a desirous 25year roadmap that includes the launch of a satellite manufactured in Nigeria by a Nigerian made launch vehicle by 2028.
Thus, the questions now,what will we do with a space program? Can all of this be possible? Well it can if Nigeria can take the following procedures:
-Nigeria can learn from other space faring nations like China,Russia and India by developing sounding rockets first which our engineers can build with the right requisites, launching small satellites like Cubesats and in the final phase large satellites and even larger payloads.
-Additionally, if we have to develop our space program, we have to engage with the advanced space powers in area of cooperative technology transfer program which they will train our Nigerian students and provide us a fledgling program with a sample working reliable rocket which we can start our indigenous manufacturing of rockets and satellites.
-Furthermore, we can reverse-engineer old and new technologies of rockets, probes,rovers whether we really want to achieve anything tangible.
-All of this involves money,Nigeria can utilize it's recovered loot to budget for our space program, though we have to know how to spend it. $2billion is enough annually to finance our space program with some of the recovered loot.
Some people will say will there be benefits after investing heavily on space by a developing nation like Nigeria? Yes,there will be benefits.
An insight into the global space economy revealed that it reached $314.17billion as at 2013 and expected to grow at 4%. The commercial sector including space products and services & commercial infrastructure was responsible for the majority part of this growth.
Individually by Nations, the Russia's space industry consists of over 100 companies and employs more than 250,000 people. Its Proton Rocket earned launch contracts worth over $6billion as at 2011. Solitary, Russia's JSC information satellite systems Company earn a revenue of $625million for manufacturing satellites.
Apart from that,.India like Nigeria also have Its own space program run by ISRO, between the year 2012-13,it earn a reported revenue of $216million and it is expected to grow by 15% in 2014-2015. All of this and they only spent $1.1billion on its space agency, that works to about 0.09% of its annual GDP, which is meager amount compared to that of NASA and ESA. Beside that, ISRO employs about 14,716 direct workers talkless of indirect workers as at 2012.
Furthermore, we can take a look at India's space industry and learn from them. They successfully sent a spacecraft to orbit Mars with only a small price of $74million making it the cheapest interplanetary mission ever to be undertaken.
Pursuing of a Mature space program by Nigeria however is not just for show, it will be costly,there will be challenges and setbacks, but on the long-run the objective has tangible benefits. Nigeria can also earn revenue through launching of satellites for other countries. It can also be a gift to our neighbours,which could boost regional cooperation, joint tackling of shared problems such as poverty, illiteracy, natural disasters and so on. Moreover, it will encourage our youths towards STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education and preventing brain drain and also capital flight by using Nigeria's home grown products. So why should we not try to raise our science and technology capabilities through space.
As I said earlier, there will be lots of challenges whether Nigeria intends to win especially people to believe in Nigerian made, African made space derived technology. Nevertheless, it can overcome that through effective management based leadership with accountability, an innovation and maintenance culture and long term outlook.


You can visit my blog at www.ajiyah. and can also find me on Facebook: Abdullahi Usman Ajiya, Instagram: abdullahi__jnr, Twitter: abdul_muslimNG.